Open Data Standards in Financial Markets: Challenges and Developments

Kay has had a successful career in financial services prior and post being elected to the European Parliament in 2009 as an MEP for Wales.

Whilst a Member of European Parliament (2009-2019), she was a leading EU legislator serving as Vice Chair of the Economics and Monetary Affairs Committee, shaping EU and global financial services legislation. Her background in Investment Banking and managing a Biotech hedge fund, stood her in good stead as a legislator of financial services, post the financial crisis of 2008.

On leaving elected office, Kay became Vice Chair of KPMG UK’s Financial Services practice and Chair of the EMA Risk & Regulatory Insight Centre. She is an active voice in the financial markets and has led special projects on financial regulation – including Fintech, UK competitiveness and capital market infrastructure as well as ESG issues.

Kay, is the former Chair of the International Regulatory Strategy Group, (one of the most influential regulatory and strategy cross-sectional groups in Europe), and a founding member of the UK Capital Markets Industry Taskforce, (an industry-led group that aims to support wider regulatory reform and the international position of the UK capital markets), and was also a member of the Financial Conduct Authority’s Secondary Markets Advisory Committee (which helps develop reforms that improve market competition, increase consumer protection and enhance the integrity of markets), and chaired the Kalifa Review’s Policy & Regulatory chapter into UK Fintech competitiveness.

Baroness Swinburne entered the House of Lords as a Peer and Government Whip (Baroness in Waiting) in June 2023. Baroness Swinburne is currently the Lords Spokesperson for Wales and is currently a Whip for HM Treasury (HMT), Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) and the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).

Gabriel Callsen is a Senior Director, FinTech and Digitalisation, at the International Capital Market Association (ICMA). He is responsible for ICMA’s Common Domain Model (CDM) project for repo and bonds and ICMA’s Bond Data Taxonomy (BDT), two key initiatives to support automation and interoperability in the international debt capital markets. He is secretary to ICMA’s FinTech Advisory Committee and DLT Bonds Working Group. He also represents ICMA at various international forums, including the Bank of England/FCA Industry Data Standards Committee (IDSC) and the Eurosystem’s New Technologies for Wholesale settlement Contact Group (NTW-CG). Gabriel has published various papers on FinTech, DLT, Big Data, AI, regulation and capital markets, and speaks regularly at industry conferences and educational events. Prior to joining ICMA Gabriel worked for the European Commission and Tradeweb.

Jim Kaye, Executive Director, FIX Trading Community Jim has worked in the financial industry for 25 years, mostly in equities electronic trading, market structure and regulatory implementation. He has been involved in FIX in various capacities over most of this period, having served as GSC co-chair for eight years, a director for five and as co-chair of various working groups.

Steven Meizanis is a senior executive with nearly 25 years of experience in the financial industry. Steven graduated summa cum laude from Rider University with a bachelor’s degree in finance. Steven is currently the global head of Bloomberg LEI Services and Entity Management. He also manages Open Symbology and the FIGI standard and Bloomberg’s Regulatory Content. With a focus on industry standards, Steven most recently led an effort through the GLEIF accreditation process, allowing Bloomberg to become a Local Operating Unit (LOU) and issuer of the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI).

Rich Robinson is a senior executive and author with over 30 years of experience in the financial industry, across operations and technology functions. He has held leadership positions throughout the front, mid and back offices at major global custodian banks, brokerages, and industry utilities, leading transformative projects in data, operations workflow, and messaging. Rich is an active participant and Chairperson of key working groups related to international data and messaging standards.

 His book, “Understanding Financial Services Through Linguistics” was published by Business Expert Press in 2021 and explores how to improve the creation and application of data, standards, and regulation in financial services through an applied linguistics lens.

 Rich is Chief Strategist, Open Data and Standards at Bloomberg LP. He works globally with regulators, legislators, and industry leaders on addressing data and standards issues to create more efficient and transparent markets. Bloomberg supports two international open data standards, FIGI and LEI, and Rich focuses on helping firms and regulators leverage these standards to achieve better interoperability and create efficiencies across the industry.

 He is currently Chair of ISITC, co-Vice Convenor of the ISO20022 RMG, and Sherpa for the APFF Financial Market Infrastructure Workstream. He is a regular speaker at conferences, and has been published in the Journal of Securities Operations and Custody, the MDPI journal “Standards”, Waters, and Inside Reference Data, among other global financial services publications.

He holds an MBA in Organizational Behavior and Information Technology from NYU’s Stern School of Business and a B.S. in Industrial Management from Carnegie Mellon University.

Mr. John Turner, CEO of XBRL International, has led the organisation for a decade. XBRL International works to enhance transparency and accountability in business performance by developing and managing the XBRL standard. XBRL is a set of open, freely licensed data exchange specifications that permit the digital production and consumption of reports of all kinds. The organisation is a global not for profit that operates in the public interest. Since 2017, XBRL International has been focussed (inter alia) on a range of questions associated with the digitisation of sustainability disclosures.

Previously, Mr. Turner served as CEO of CoreFiling, led XBRL activities at KPMG International LLP, and spearheaded the world’s first regulatory project using XBRL for data collection, at APRA, the Australian financial regulator. He is a strong advocate for practical standards to enhance reporting and collaborates with consortium members, regulators and policy makers worldwide. He holds degrees in Law and Arts (Computer Science and Government) from the University of Queensland. He is based in Oxford, in the UK.

Richard joined Bloomberg in September 2015 in an industry relations role in the Bloomberg Data business.  This role includes advocacy for Bloomberg’s Open Symbology initiatives, covering instrument and entity identifiers.  Richard also undertakes wider industry and regulatory outreach on the data aspects of Bloomberg’s services, including those related to regulatory driven initiatives, ESG and digital assets. Prior to joining Bloomberg, Richard spent 20 years with the financial messaging and standards body – SWIFT, where he held a variety of roles in sales and marketing.  He led initiatives with EU and other regulators to raise awareness of the operational impacts of regulation, including strengthening the regulatory recognition of financial messaging and reference data standards.  This involved a particular focus on the promotion of the ISO 20022 financial messaging standard to EU regulatory bodies. Prior to joining SWIFT Richard held product management roles with a leading global custodian for four years, and before that with the London Stock Exchange.